


For What It's Worth

by lammermoorian



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, That's Not How The Force Works, brief appearances from friends, no beta we die like men, sabine zeb kallus lando etc.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 03:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22009057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lammermoorian/pseuds/lammermoorian
Summary: Final fight for the fate of the galaxy? There's nowhere else Hera Syndulla would rather be.Written for the Rebels/ROS challenge
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49
Collections: Rebels ROS Event





	For What It's Worth

The sheer, naked look of betrayal in his face is almost enough to change her mind. “I’m not going.”

Jacen wears his flightsuit round the clock, just like she used to do, and she should feel proud, except that she fought in a war specifically so he wouldn’t have to. No one was surprised when he enlisted in the New Republic Navy, least of all her, but seeing him constantly primed and poised for takeoff ignites something like shame deep in her stomach. As if this First Order  _ poodoo _ is her fault. 

“Didn’t you hear them?” He’s not yelling--he never gets angry, it’s just not in his nature--but he is very, very close, and that alone tells Hera all she needs to know about just how dire the Resistance’s situation is. “I have to be there.  _ We  _ have to be there.”

“ _ I _ don’t have to do anything.” Jacen stares at her like she’s a stranger, and she steels her heart even further. Is it cold? Perhaps. A better adjective might be ‘pragmatic.’ Or ‘selfish.’ “And if it’s as bad as you say… Jacen, it might not be enough.”

He gapes at her, the ugly glare of betrayal replaced with shock. It doesn’t make her feel better. “I don’t believe this. Are you listening to yourself? You’re the one who told me--”

“I know what I said,” she snaps, “so don’t you dare--”

“This is possibly the biggest fight of our lives, and you’re just going to--”

“It never ends.” She grips her caf hard enough to leave indents in her hands, the heat radiating burning into her palms and giving her the fury to look Jacen in the eye. “There’s always going to be another fight, and I’m not--” She cuts herself off with a grimace, loosening her grip on the mug. Swollen joints, broken bones, shaky hands, a lifetime’s worth of pilot injuries have left them weaker than she remembers them being. She has to be careful with her hands, the doctors told her, if she wanted to keep flying. 

Hera sighs, and lets it go, lets all her anger rush out of her alongside her breath. “I’m too old for this sort of thing, love.” Jacen wilts a little at the childhood nickname, anger slowly leeching out of him. “If I thought it would help, you know I would be there in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even hesitate.” She settles the mug down on the table with a soft clink, soft enough that Jacen doesn’t even look up from where his gaze is fixed on his hands, worrying the seams of his sleeves like he always did as a kid. When she stands up and takes his hands in hers, stilling them, she has to look up, and by the Goddess, when did he get so old. He’s taller than Kanan was when he died. He’s taller than her father.

He finally meets her gaze again, blue eyes swimming, scared but determined all the same, and it makes her choice all that much easier. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go.”

He blinks. “What?”

“Your Baba needs me.” Her father is… well, there’s no hiding it, her father is an old man. A two-time veteran and a political luminary, Ryloth is his eternal, final home, and Cham will not be moved, not even for the latest galactic threat, and he needs taking care of. Hera doesn’t mind, which still surprises her--even ten years ago she would have found it stifling, suffocating, but the latest war has managed to evade Ryloth for once, leaving it quiet and calm for the first time in generations. On clear nights, she will take her father to the still burned out remains of the family home, she will help him to the top of the cliff, and he will tell her all the star-stories she’d never heard before, her war-torn childhood bereft of such things. It’s peaceful. She’d never known Ryloth could be so peaceful. 

“I need to stay here. But if you want to help the Resistance…” 

It’s not as if she doesn’t believe in the cause, in General Organa wholeheartedly--if anyone can weasel out a win, it’s her--but, well, Hera is tired. She’s tired and maybe she’s given enough. She had been tired during the Civil War. She was tired the day she lost her brother. And Kanan, he had been tired, too, his lightsaber happily and spitefully hung up as he tried to eke out a living among the criminal scum of the Outer Rim, until Hera had dragged him kicking and screaming into another war, ignoring the scars from the last one, as stark and prominent as the one that came to cross his face. War has taken so much from her, her friends and her family, bright-eyed idealists and jaded veterans alike, squeezing them for every last drop. It should have been enough. 

But Jacen takes her in with those beautiful blue eyes of his, that familiar strong nose and furrowed brow, so like the father he had never known, and she doesn’t try to stop the words from coming. “If you want to go, I won’t stop you.”

When he had been a little boy, Jacen had happily made the rounds of the Rebellion telling everyone and anyone who would listen all about how his momma was the greatest pilot in the galaxy. It was a title that many chose to claim, but in the Rebellion, it was more than just a simple boast. She had never been one to brag, but it was no secret--the Spectres had pulled off some of the most unbelievable missions the Rebellion had ever seen. New Republic Navy recruits approached her with stars in their eyes, desperate for wisdom from the most skilled, most famous pilot in the galaxy, and not just because Commander Skywalker was nowhere to be found. Today, Jacen gazes at her with that same intensity, that same unshakeable belief in the miracles she performed. “Take the  _ Ghost _ .”

“The  _ Ghost _ ? Are--are you sure?”

“There’s no one I trust more with my ship, and she’ll pack more of a punch than your X-Wing. You think you’ll be able to pull a crew together from the Resistance?”

He nods, furiously, the little fly-aways in his hair coming undone from his ponytail, and she resists the urge to comb them back. “Absolutely.”

“Then go. You have my blessing.” 

Her son is far too good to leave without her approval, especially now, but she almost wishes he had. Maybe then it wouldn’t have felt so final as she walked him through her standard checklist, the same one she’d used for decades, as she waves goodbye to the ship that had won her the last war, and prays that it will win him this one.

A year passes, and Jacen somehow finds the time to keep in touch. It’s not quite like it was during the Empire, blessedly; the Resistance doesn’t have to scuttle beneath the iron boot of a government that would throw you in a labor camp for so much as blinking. They have their own problems to deal with, but communication with loved ones doesn’t seem to be one of them. Or maybe Jacen just remembered her lessons on signal rerouting better than she could have hoped for. 

They exchange news when they can. Hers is better than is. The Resistance is being whittled away, ship by ship, soldier by soldier, but Cham can walk without her help again, and Jacen smiles hard enough like the force of his joy can take down the First Order by itself. 

One day, however, it’s not Jacen who comms. 

“General.” Even at eighty-two, Calrissian’s smooth, spice-runner smirk is firmly affixed to his face, but the deep crinkles around his eyes betray just how happy he is to see her. 

“General,” Hera greets him, equal parts glad and wary to see him. “What can I do for you?” she asks, as if she can’t already guess.

“I’m recruiting,” he says, proudly, “on behalf of the Resistance, for a full assault on Exegol. Can we count on you?”

She very nearly says no. Calrissian won’t judge her, she thinks. He’s a war hero just the same as she, and he’s suffered the same as her, his family stolen from him by evil, spiteful First Order operatives. She knows for a fact he distanced himself from the New Republic too, going off with Commander Skywalker to parts unknown for reasons unknown. If she has any sense, she’ll shut down the call right now.

“How many have we--have you got?” she asks instead. 

He raises a delicate eyebrow at her, lips curling even further. “More than you’d think,” he says, gently. “This battle may very well be the biggest one of our lives.”

“Isn’t it always,” she sighs. 

War is as familiar to her as her mother’s face. It’s the first and final member of their little family, the one she managed to carve out of the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy. It’s been with her since she was a child, and she should probably stop pretending that it isn’t with her now. But her blood sings battle-songs to the tempo of her pounding heart, and the hot, vicious feeling in her gut isn’t shame anymore. It’s rage.

“Let me make a few calls.”

Lando smiles at her, bloodthirsty.

* * *

Happy in their retirement as they were, Hera honestly thought it would be harder to convince them to leave. Her team has earned their peace, every last one of them, and she hates that she is the one who has to break it. 

But to her delight and honor, when she called them, they answered, and happily so. Kallus and Zeb had departed Lira San some time ago, promising to rendezvous on Ajan Kloss in a few days. Sabine, it turns out, is already here, having touched down a few days past with enough bombs, it seems, to take out the entire Sith fleet. 

The primary strikeforce has already sortied, but they’ll be right behind them, as soon as General Calrissian rounds up the last of the volunteers. Until then, she deals with pre-battle nerves the way she always has: laps around the base.

The chatter of a thousand languages, the unrestrained laughter and tears, the quiet moments of comfort amid the barking of orders--the base on Ajan Kloss blends with Yavin IV, with Hoth and with Atollon, and gruff, ancient voices hail her as “General,” as “Hera,” as old, old friends, and--

“Mother.”

She turns. Her eyes blur. “Jacen!”

In half a breath he wraps her up in his arms, strong like his grandfather’s, turning his human nose into her flight cap. “I’m,” he chokes, voice thick, “I’m so glad you’re here.” When she pulls away, there are tear tracks on his face, spilling into the wide split of his smile, and he doesn’t wipe them away. “I--I wasn’t sure if--”

“Of course I came,” she says, reaching up one hand to cup his cheek, and he leans into it like a man dying. “But why aren’t you with the strike team?”

There’s that look again. The little boy looks down at his hero. Her vision blurs again. “Because our best pilot needs the best ship,” he says with such conviction that she shakes from it. 

“And the best crew.” Sabine appears behind him, hair unflinchingly silver and steel, with Zeb and Kallus in tow. “Spectre-Five, reporting for duty.”

“Spectre-Four, reporting for duty,” says Zeb, his ancient, proud bo-rifle slung over his shoulder. 

“Captain Kallus, reporting for duty,” Kallus says, knocking off the perfect salute that he had never been able to shake.

“Spectre-Seven,” says her son, one hand heavy and warm on her shoulder. “We’re ready when you are.”

Chopper had stayed in Ryloth with her father, veterans who had given quite enough already. Rex had passed on years ago, happily and with all due honors, having finally met his general’s children and seeing in them all the best qualities of the man to whom he had pledged his loyalty. Spectres-One and Six were empty callsigns, and she had vowed long ago never to try to fill them. But Hera couldn’t dream of a better crew for this, the final battle. 

Following the  _ Falcon _ , they drop out of hyperspace, the orders coming from her like they always had, with intuition and inspiration. “Kallus, man the nose gun. Zeb, you’re on aft. Jacen--”

“Dorsal turret, already on it!” He dashes out of the cockpit, scrambling up the ladder to his father’s seat. 

It’s an absolute shitstorm out there. LIke a scene lifted directly from her childhood night terrors, the rows of Star Destroyers stretch out like tombstones. Each one is a planet killer, General Dameron had told them. 

That’s okay, she tells herself. The last time she went up against a planet killer, she gave birth to Jacen. This many? Might as well call it a good omen.

Now Jacen fights by her side, armed with his father’s eye and his mother’s reflexes, and Hera is pleased to see that none of the rest of her crew have lost their edge. Sabine’s picked up a few tricks from Ahsoka on their travels, her reaction time whittled down to a fraction of what it had been. Even the  _ Ghost  _ shows no signs of her age, as sleek and responsive as it ever was, darting in and out of enemy firing radii, and the TIES fall away before them.

And Hera, well. There’s a reason she used to be called the greatest pilot in the Alliance. 

They’re broadcasting on all channels, every channel--no need for espionage here. Cheers and screams crowd the airwaves alike, but slowly, like nightfall descending, like the crash of a giant wave, the voices drop out, one by one, each linked to a burst of fire outside the viewport. Then they multiply. Ships go dark all around them, physics and trajectory sending them careening, and not even the  _ Ghost  _ can escape it this time.

Lightning lances through the ship, up through the controls and the comms and through  _ her _ , choking her breath, and it’s  _ different _ , far beyond an accidental electrocution or a case of shock torture, but that’s all that she can see, Pryce’s sadistic grin, Thrawn’s flat, dead eyes, and maybe it’s the lightning frying her brain, but she feels the heat again, she’s suspended beyond the line of fire that threatens to eat them whole and raw, and there he is, reaching out, holding her back, seeing her one last time. 

Faintly, she hears Sabine crying, a voice in the wilderness, irrevocably woven in with the weeping mothers of her childhood, from her own mother’s cries the day she lost her son, a chorus of keening grief that freezes and rots away at the core of her--

Her hands shake, electricity keeping them grasped tight around the controls, but still they fall. 

“--ectre-Two--”

The surface of Exegol rises up to meet them, a great, yawning void of ice and evil, and--

“--om!”

And she closes her eyes like Kanan had taught Ezra, like he had taught her once, a secret knowledge that she passed on to her students, because sometimes those Jedi didn’t have half-bad ideas, and she takes her anger and her fear and her sorrow, takes the pain, and lets it all go down the river, until all that remains is her mother’s smile, the maiden voyage of the B-Wing fighter, the supernova over Endor, Jacen’s smiling, tear-stained face, and-- 

“Mom!” Jacen’s voice rings clear as a bell, as he screams at her from the dorsal turret. “Mom, he’s here!”

_ Hera _ .

She’s not one of them. She’s never had that, that spiritual connection that the Jedi shared, that brought Ezra to Kanan. But she feels it now, as clear as day, as strong as they were all those years ago, two large hands on hers, easing her fingers apart, a tickle of a beard on her cheek, and she sees a kind, sightless gaze over a crooked smile behind her closed eyes. What’s more, she sees  _ her _ down there beneath the surface, her red-rimmed eyes and slack, bloody face as she gazes up past the battle, towards the stars, beseeching--

_ Go _ , she tells the ghost.  _ She needs you _ . 

The presence leaves her, like the smell of wildflowers carried away by a summertime wind, over the hill and far away, but her hands are no longer bound to the controls so painfully. Time… time almost slows, the space between heartbeats stretched out, giving her time to think. To command.

She wraps her fingers around the steering, throwing every inch of her renewed strength into keeping them level. “Sabine!” she barks. “I need you!”

To her right, the woman lets loose another wave of tears, with a grief so raw and painful it transforms her into that scared, sad, magnificently brave eighteen year old girl who had held tight to an ancient sword and finally opened her heart. It’s that girl Hera reaches for now, grasping Sabine’s wrist, sparing a glance sideways--not like the displays are of much use now anyway--and shaking her, just a little bit. “Spectre-Five!”

Sabine sniffs, eyes unseeing. “Ezra…  _ Tristan-- _ ” Her voice shakes, and tries to wrap her arms around herself as she shudders. Only Hera’s grip keeps her from folding. “Hera, they--”

“I know,” says Hera anyway, “and I’m sorry, but I need you now.”

“I--”

“Sabine!”

Three eternal heartbeats. That’s how long it takes for Sabine to come back to herself, for those eyes to clear, that spine to relax, those shoulders to square. Her mouth sets, a grim, determined line. “What do you need?”

Hera’s mouth twists upwards of its own accord. Kanan always did say that she was an adrenaline junkie. “Get those comms back online, first. Then, hang on!”

“What about me?”

She turns in her seat to see Jacen standing in the doorway, face pale and drawn, but more importantly-- “What are you doing? I need you at the dorsal, Spectre-Seven!”

He shakes his head. “Gun’s fried, and the TIES are falling too. What can I do?”

Abandoning his post mid-battle, they are going to have words about this later, but if the TIEs are down as well, then they won’t need-- “Fine! I need you to reroute what remaining power we have left from the shields and the turrets to the engines.”

“Which turret?”

“All of them! We need those engines hot, and we need them now!”

The ship does level, though whether that is Sabine’s doing is anyone’s guess. Jacen rushes up to the dashboard, his hands flying over the buttons, and he scrambles the order a quick reroute, and  _ dammit _ why had she left Chopper behind, he would have been able to swing this without having to let the  _ Ghost  _ freefall for those horrible, eternal seconds, hurtling towards the surface of Exegol.

All at once, the evil lifts. The lightning fizzles out. Voices on the comms pop back in, one after another, ragged and confused. “Hera,” Zeb groans, raspy like he’s been gargling rock, “what--”

“Power’s good!” Jacen yells, and Hera  _ punches it _ , rocketing up towards open space, keeping pace with Dameron’s distinctive black X-Wing.

They rise. They lead the charge. And the Destroyers fall, every single kriffing one of them. 

Jacen is swinging Sabine around in the hug to end all hugs. Zeb’s distinctive thuds echo throughout the ship as he bounds down the hallway to the nose gun. And there’s that pressure on her shoulder again. She raises her hand, sliding it up, hoping beyond all hope that this time they’ll actually feel something, and not just grasp at air like they always do, and she brushes--

She looks up. Jacen is there, hand on her shoulder, smiling down at her with her mother’s blinding grin. 

The Sith fleet crumbles silently, falling to the surface of Exegol in a cataclysmic explosion worthy of the cheering Mandalorian beside her, but she doesn’t spare even a glance to the destruction. She falls in line with the fleet, setting coordinates for Ajan Kloss, and only when they are in hyperspace once again does she stagger to her feet, pulling her son into her arms. 

This time, she prays. This time, let it be enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Because there's no way in Heck that Jacen and Hera weren't there.


End file.
